


Catching Wormtail

by Apence



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6114007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apence/pseuds/Apence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius's POV as he escapes from Azkaban.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Wormtail

Sirius always thought of Peter as their shadow. He didn’t quite belong, being short compared to James, Remus, and his own tall nature. Where they had dark hair, Peter’s was the color wheat. While they were lithe and strong, he was stout and flabby. Sirius had never thought much of him to be quite honest. He enjoyed the attention, the almost hero-worship that Peter bestowed upon him and James. He laughed at Sirius’ jokes, he went along with James’ pranks, and, most importantly, he stood with all of them when they found out that they lost Remus to the full moon. It had seemed that way at least. Sirius realizes now that Peter had only wanted protection from them (which he’d easily gotten with both their popularity and their, at times, cruel pranks). And when they’d all moved on to fight the war raging outside of their homes, Peter just seemed to disappear. Sirius has sleepless nights when he thinks about this, wondering if Peter’s aimlessness and fear caused him to get caught in the perilous grip of Voldemort.  
Sirius turned over on his rock bed, that Azkaban had so graciously provided him, and stared out between the bars of the window onto the oppressive and ever-constant storm. He hears someone down the hall screaming unintelligibly, before tapering off into quiet mutterings. Sirius feels the need to do the same. His head is filled to the brim with no release and he fears if he feels any of those feelings too strongly the Dementors will come for him and then he really won’t get any sleep. His anger for Peter, which had been boiling low in his stomach, rises up his throat and turns his face red with the force of it. He’s here because of that damned rat. He’s here because no one could ever conceive that meek Peter Pettigrew could ever sink so far into fear as to betray the only people who ever treated him with a shred of kindness. It almost baffled Sirius more than it angered him.  
He thinks of all the things he’s heard these past twelve years, mutterings between cells, nightmare screams, and nasty taunts thrown back and forth between Death Eaters (those with sanity still left). He’s had a few nightmares of his own, picturing all the plans they had for Wormtail and, truly the worst part, what they planned to do to James’ son. He thought about Harry about as much as he did Peter. When he closes his eyes he see’s James, just a day after Harry was born, standing at the door with the black-haired bundle in his arms. At first, Sirius had taken to James enthusiasm of the child more than felt his own. But seeing him grow with a vibrant personality that infants lacked, he fell just as much in love as James and Lily. Thoughts of them brought Sirius a dull but deep ache that made him curl up to smother it.  
It terrified him the burden that was on his godchild’s shoulders. He wondered, as he watched enormous waves hit the boulders of the island, what Harry’s life was like. He imagined it wasn’t particularly pleasant having to be under the Dursley’s care, after all, he’d heard from Lily on her muggle sister. His heart ached for him. All of him ached. He was hungry and weak. He got dizzy just sitting up in bed, not to mention getting up and pacing, as he usually liked to do. And transforming into his dog form was out of the question.  
It got cold quickly in the rock-built room, but as the temperature dropped to the point of turning Sirius’ fingers and toes bright red, his insides shook. He didn’t dare look at the cell door. He was far too familiar with the disturbing image that would meet him. Faceless, emotionless, a physical representation of what muggles called a black hole, standing there, waiting to take another piece of his life away from him.  
“I’m innocent. I’m innocent. I didn’t kill them. I didn’t.”  
Though those thoughts kept him sane, they never could stop the sucking mouth of the Dementor’s and the helplessness they left him with.  
* * *  
There was quite a commotion going on down the hall. It was more than another hopeless soul lost to his emotions and buried, it was louder than that. As the noise got closer, Sirius made out one of the other prisoners hurling insults through his cell door.  
“C’mere Minister! I want to give you a big kiss you slimy git!” Sirius heard someone spit and the Minister’s groan in response. He was mildly satisfied by it, wish he had the saliva to do it himself, to be frank. Quick footsteps came his way after that until they were right in front of his cell, Fudge flanked by two aurors he’d never seen before.  
“Sirius Black. Comfortable, I hope?” Fudge was more vocal with steel bars reinforced by magic between them. At Sirius’ capture and trial, the Minister had been shaking in his boots and rightly so as Sirius had screamed and fought his way from every auror that tried to hold him down.  
“Never felt better, Minister. My only complaint is the lack of reading material. A man has to keep his wits about him, don’t you think?” Sirius walked up to the bars, ignoring the stars dancing at edges of his vision. He sneered in the Minister’s face his teeth almost black in the light and the pallor of his skin unsettlingly gray. Fudge took a step back, his face scrunched up before straightening up to standing and readjusting his suit. Fudge took another long look at Sirius’s physique before reaching inside his suit. He pulled out a familiar paper in which Sirius could already see the repetitive dance of the pictures and the familiar scrawl of the titles.

Grand Prize Winner Visits Egypt  
Fudge shoves the paper between the bars before Sirius can catch it and they both watch as it flops to the floor. Sirius keeps looking at the cover of The Daily Prophet even as he hears Fudge and his posse walk away. All the feelings he’s felt for a little over a decade now, bubble over and it takes him a few moments to realize that the maniacal laughter he hears is coming from him and him alone. That damn rat.  
* * *  
He’d been transforming as often as possible this past week. Experimenting with the way the Dementor’s could sense him in either form and testing his own strength. As faceless as the Dementor’s were, Sirius could swear he could see some confusion on their blank faces as he sat in his cell as a mangy dog. He waited, impatiently, as he heard the clank of the cell doors and plates of food being pushed into his neighbors’ cell. One Dementor finally approaches his cell, gliding across the stone floor and carrying a small plate of food (which reminds Sirius, in a rare moment of humor, of a butler covered in a black shroud). He senses their confusion again, all of his human emotions dumbed down to the point of what must seem like insanity. He wastes little time maneuvering around the animated cloaks and easily slips through the small space before trotting off. Now to find the way out.  
* * *  
He doesn’t remember how long it took him to swim to land. He knows that he slept, at least, a full day after that, exhausted and famished after years of inactivity and malnutrition. He sniffed his way to London before following the elusive train tracks to Hogwarts. He was inexhaustibly happy eating hare’s and birds along the way, taking delight in swatting the birds out of the air in a childlike sense of joy. But his goal didn’t escape him and he chanted ‘Harry’ and ‘Hogwarts’ in his simple brain as he let the earth underneath him sink into the cracks of his paws. Sirius found it immensely strange that he could enjoy these moments so thoroughly with the burden of Harry’s life on his back. The calm before the storm, he supposed.  
It was night when Sirius finally entered the grounds of Hogwarts. On the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the warm lights shining through the windows of the Great Hall, Sirius lies down and keeps chanting, keeps thinking of his goal.  
“He’s at Hogwarts.”  
* * *  
He’s laid low, hiding deep in the forest, far away from where the Dementor’s are patrolling, gliding along the tree line like true predators. Sirius somehow manages to avoid them, a kind centaur pointing him to caves and bushes with enough cover to protect him from the elements. Sirius has an inkling feeling that the centaur knew what he was but said nothing to the contrary.  
He wakes up today to loud voices and rambunctious cheers. He slinks towards the edge of the forest and tilts his head toward the noise. He follows it, knowing the Dementor’s have taken to the skies now after weeks of inactivity. Nostalgia swells in his chest as he spots the colorful banners and the three hoops of the quidditch field. So much so that he can practically feel the wind in his hair and the adrenaline of avoiding a rogue bludger. He trots close and stops in shock as he see’s James, high above him perched atop his broom. He shakes himself of the memories and finds himself shocked again that James’ son is his carbon copy even in the sport he loved so dearly. He watches Harry twist and turn, a natural on his broom as if it were a third hand. The resemblance hits Sirius hard. He can’t let his friend die again. He has to make Pettigrew pay.


End file.
